In yet another stark policy difference between President Trump and Joe Biden, the Trump Administration has “slashed the number of refugees it will allow to resettle in the United States in the coming year, capping the number at 15,000, a record low in the history of the country’s modern refugee program” (Reuters, Oct. 28, 2020).

The level of 15,000 will be limited to refugees from specific categories of admissions, potentially leaving out more than 1.4 million of the world’s most vulnerable refugees still in need of resettlement, the International Refugee Committee said in an Oct. 28 news release. “This late announcement came a full month into the fiscal year, causing undue delays to thousands of vulnerable people left in harm’s way,” the IRC noted.

The administration also included a restriction on individuals from Somalia, Syria, or Yemen, requiring that individuals from these three countries “shall not be admitted as refugees” unless they meet specific humanitarian carve-outs, the IRC said.

Biden says he will restore the program to around 125,000 refugees a year should he be elected President of the United States.

President Trump’s “rollicking abuse of refugees and the answering jeers of his fans are a frank confession of moral rottenness,” writes George Packer in a new column for the Atlantic magazine. “His contempt for people who have given up everything to become Americans fully displays his fundamental unworthiness as a president and a human being,” Packer says of Trump.

Under Trump, notes Packer, the U.S. refugee program has almost collapsed. “Last year, the administration set a ceiling of just 18,000 refugees. It actually admitted 10,000. Several weeks ago, the administration announced that the ceiling for fiscal year 2021 will go down to 15,000.”

Becca Heller, the executive director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, told Packer, “I think if Trump is reelected, it’s the end of the U.S. refugee program.”

In stark contrast to Trump’s hostility to refugees, Joe Biden has pledged to raise the ceiling of refugees admitted to the U.S. to 125,000 in his first year as president.

The Trump administration earlier this week said it intends to allow only 15,000 refugees to resettle in the United States in the 2021 fiscal year, “setting another record low in the history of the modern refugee program,” Reuters reported on Oct. 1.

The refugee cap was reduced to 18,000 last year, “but only roughly half that many refugees were let in as increased vetting and the coronavirus have slowed arrivals,” the news service noted.

The Trump administration “said it would cut its already rock-bottom refugee admissions still deeper into record territory for the upcoming year, as President Trump returned to his anti-immigrant themes in the closing month of his re-election campaign,” the New York Times reported.

Trump cut the cap to 50,000 in 2017 and then to 45,000 in 2018, 30,000 in 2019 and 18,000 last year, notes Claire Hansen in U.S. News and World Report.

Refugee groups decry proposal

A number of groups that place refugees were quick to criticize the proposal.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) “reacts with deep concern to the Trump administration’s report to Congress recommending a refugee admissions goal of 15,000 for fiscal year 2021, a further reduction from the all-time low of 18,000 set in the previous year, in the face of growing global need,” the IRC said in a statement.

“It is a sad moment when our country shows such weakness when it should be leading,” said HIAS President and CEO Mark Hetfield said. “The administration’s decision to set a record low number of refugees at a time of record high needs — and without even consulting with Congress, as required by law — shows how far we have fallen. Not only will refugees who have fled violence and persecution suffer, but so will our country, as refugees who become new Americans have contributed so much to this country.”

Biden proposes increase in refugee admissions

Joe Biden, the presidential nominee for the Democratic Party, has committed to restoring the annual cap on refugees in the U.S. to 125,000 people.